Putting out the candle: Sufism and the orgy libel in late Ottoman and modern Turkey

ABSTRACT

This article examines a religious libel, well-known in Turkish as ‘putting out the candle’ (mum söndürmek), that levels the accusation of orgiastic activities against Bektashi Sufis and Kızılbaş-Alevis. Dating back to at least the second century B.C.E. the accusation of debauchery following the extinguishing of candles has had a long and varied history in the Mediterranean that knows neither linguistic nor confessional boundaries. In the early twentieth century, the orgy libel was transformed by Turkish authors and propagated via modern fiction, particularly in novels and short stories. I argue that this change in authorship and genre had the effect of adapting ancient slanders and giving them new dimensions of appeal and credibility among modern audiences. Namely, modern Turkish literature wielded the orgy libel to entertain the public, support the reform and suppression of Sufi lodges, and express patriarchal views about women’s roles in society.

KEYWORDS:

• Sufism
• Istanbul
• Bektashi
• Ottoman history
• Turkish literature
• slander
• Alevi

It would seem that a Bektashi ceremony resembled the debauched orgies of Nero, Petronius or Trimalchio.Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu Nur Baba (1921)

I saw the women and the men get close to one another and embrace […] there were at least fifty or sixty people. Slowly the candles began to go out as they exhausted their wax. Peyami Safa, ‘A Young Girl among the Bektashis’ (Bir Genç Kız Bektaşiler Arasında) (1927)

The accusation of orgiastic activities following the ‘extinguishing of candles’ has had a long and varied history in the eastern Mediterranean region, one that knows neither linguistic nor confessional boundaries. This libel has been levelled at a variety of groups including worshipers of the gods Dionysius/Bacchus, Zoroastrians, Christians, Sufis, Kızılbaş-Alevis, Yezidis, Jews, Ismailis, Druze, Alawites, Free Masons and Sabbateans. This article focuses on a particular version of the libel, well-known in Turkish as ‘putting out the candle’ (Tr. mum söndürmek) that levels the accusation of ritual orgy against Bektashi Sufis and Alevis. At present, the ‘putting out the candle’ myth continues to have currency in modern Turkey and is alluded to in many forms of modern culture.

In this piece, I argue that accusations that were historically part of popular legend, state polemics or put forward by the ulama were reworked by modernist authors and propagated via new forms of fiction, particularly in novels and short stories. Importantly, this change in authorship and genre had the effect of modernising ancient slanders and giving them newfound credibility among modern audiences. In other words, new forms of media enabled accusations of sexual debauchery and perversion to assume new resonance and novel dimensions in the realm of modern, national culture. One important new use was to wield the libel as a tool for expressing scepticism about women’s empowerment in the early Turkish Republic as literary versions used it to portray educated, elite women as emotional, irrational, and overly sensual at a time of official state promotion of women’s education and empowerment. Another key element of its invocation was its power to entertain and fascinate the public. The works explored below blended the orgy libel with a modern genre of erotic literature to sell books and entertain male audiences. Finally, by underlining the depravity of Sufi shaykhs, novels and short stories supported the reform and repression of Sufi lodges and activities, a major initiative of the late Ottoman and early republican government, which ultimately abolished Sufi institutions in 1925.

Since the late nineteenth century, Muslim reformist and modernist currents of thought have raised a plethora of criticisms against Sufi lodges and traditions. Prominent critics such as Rashid Rida deemed Sufi practices as unwelcome accretions or perversions of Islamic piety and attacked Sufi orders, shaykhs, and communities as being lethargic, anti-rational, hierarchical, idolatrous, non-sharia compliant, and representative of backward societies (Green 2012). In modern Turkey, anti-Sufi discourse turned vitriolic in the hands of modernist and nationalist intellectuals beginning around 1913, and, following the Shaykh Said Revolt, culminating in the legal abolition of Sufism in 1925. Newspapers, novels, and films blamed Sufi institutions and leaders for impeding social progress, spreading idleness, and corrupting the morality of society. Once a central component of Ottoman society, Sufi lodges were now blamed for a whole host of social ills and demonised as dens of perdition and cradles of opposition to modernising policies of the state (Beyinli 2021, 2022; Soileau 2018, 2024). Within this context, the orgy libel was used to weaken the credibility and social status of Sufi leaders and institutions.

In this article, we focus on the sexual and gender-oriented elements of anti-Sufi discourse in the form of a prominent libel. While such elements appeared in medieval or early modern attacks on Sufi orders, the twentieth-century context allowed them to evolve and develop within new genres and media, such as the novel and the newspaper, at a time when women’s roles and Sufism’s place in society were dramatically changing. In the early 20th century as women began to have more public roles in society, enhanced mobility, and new legal rights, the role of Sufism in preventing or impeding this progress was on the minds of modernist intellectuals and statesmen. What changed in modern critiques and how did modern literature transform earlier libels? We investigate how this slander has been used in modern literature vis-à-vis Sufi lodges and Sufi ceremonies in the late Ottoman empire and early years of the Turkish Republic.

The burgeoning literature on sexuality in Ottoman society and the broader Eastern Mediterranean suggests that a major transformation occurred in the domain of sexuality and amorous relationships that transformed notions of normality and acceptability during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Andrews and Kalpaklı 2004; Avcı 2017; Semerdjian 2012; Ze’evi 2006). Elements of Ottoman erotic culture such as homoerotic love, polygyny, and dancing boys came to be less and less accepted over the course of the nineteenth century, then fell under scrutiny and, eventually met with outright rejection. Observing a major cultural shift in the late nineteenth century, Ahmed Cevdet Pasha famously wrote, in a document presented to Sultan Abdulhamid II:

Woman-lovers have increased in number, while boy-beloveds have decreased. It is as if the People of Lot have been swallowed by the earth. The love and affinity that were, in Istanbul, notoriously and customarily directed towards young men have now been redirected towards girls, in accordance with the state of nature. (Translation retrieved from Schick 2018)

Not only did the prevalence of man-to-youth attraction wane, but heterosexual relationships underwent dramatic changes as the practice of polygyny became illegal and women’s roles outside the home gradually became more prominent. The idea of love itself underwent dramatic rethinking in scientific and literary circles (Kılıç 2020). The gradual shift towards the modern nuclear family and the increased educational opportunities for women also changed the very terrain upon which relationships between men and women took place. In modern literature and the press, male authors often struggled to cope with the new realities while female writers like Halide Edip Adivar and Sabiha Sertel fought an uphill battle to gain space to make their voices heard for expanded rights and acceptance for women in society. With the advent of the Turkish Republic in 1923, a discourse of women’s empowerment and visibility was promoted by the state and propagated via the press. However, some republican intellectuals and leaders simultaneously feared women’s liberation and tended to emphasise the role of women as mothers of the nation (Adak 2022; Arat 2000; Karahan 2012). The conjunction of a progressive agenda with the realities of entrenched traditional gender roles resulted in a tension with regard to the modern woman in Turkey, one that endures today.

Despite changes in gender roles and the erotic landscape during the early twentieth century, the accusation of orgy against Alevis and Bektashis remained persistent in the early twentieth century and well into the twenty-first. Perhaps this should come as no great surprise as the connection between the libel and real life has never been strong. However, it is intriguing that authors still chose to use and rework it via new forms of media. In this context, we ask: how did accusations of illicit sexuality against Sufis transform in new media such as the novel? What did the modern public sphere mean for the expression and invocation of anti-Sufi discourse?

Accusations of impropriety included a wide range of activities including, the predations of Sufi shaykhs on young women, married women, and boys, but perhaps nothing offended the moral sensibilities more than the unrestrained sexual pleasure and social chaos epitomised by the orgy, which is precisely what is suggested by the ‘putting out the candle’ myth. In literature, film, and public discourse, observers saw danger not only in sexual acts themselves but also in the potential undermining of the family and normative understandings of gender roles, understandings that were in a period of significant flux as the new norms of the republic nudged the population away from those of the traditional Muslim family.

We begin with a historical overview of this remarkably old and widespread libel and then proceed to trace its transformation in the hands of modern authors. The first section is not intended to be exhaustive but rather to survey the older versions of the accusation to provide a backdrop to the late Ottoman and modern Turkish iterations. While it is not yet possible to draw a clear lineage of transmission from Roman Latin versions to Persian and Turkish ones, elements of the stories are strikingly similar and suggest that they circulated via a combination of oral and written texts.

Extinguishing the candle: from ancient Rome to modern Istanbul

In 186 BCE the Roman Senate decided to persecute the followers of Dionysus/Bacchus, the god of wine and agriculture. The disciples gathered at night on the hills and danced to the sound of flutes and drums, wearing fawn skins and ivy crowns. The Roman historian Livy (d. 17 CE) writes:

From the time when the rites were held promiscuously, with men and women mixed together, and when the license offered by darkness had been added, no sort of crime, no kind of immorality was left unattempted. There were more obscenities practiced between men than between men and women. Anyone refusing to submit to outrage or reluctant to commit crimes was slaughtered as a sacrificial victim. To regard nothing as forbidden was among these people the summit of religious achievement. (Livy 39.13, Translation retrieved from Bettenson 1976)

The Senate accused them of committing sexual indecencies, including orgies at their nocturnal meetings, which were viewed as subversive and posing a threat to the state. In what was called the Bacchanalia affair, the state executed some 7,000 followers of the cult. The Bacchanalia, officially shamed and defamed, was subjected to new regulations that limited how and when they could gather.

Pagan polemicists used virtually the same description of sacrificial orgiastic activity for early Christians (Riedl 2012). In a famous version provided by Minucius Felix (d. ca. 250 CE), first a ritual sacrifice of an infant takes place, the body of which is then consumed by the participants. This combination of ritual sacrifice (of infants or sometimes animals) is common in the libel in various geographies. The infanticide is followed by an orgy in the dark and, here, we see an early instance of ‘putting out the candle’:

On a special day they gather for a feast with all their children, sisters, mothers—all sexes and all ages. There, flushed with the banquet after such feasting and drinking, they begin to burn with incestuous passions. They provoke a dog tied to the lampstand to leap … towards a scrap of food which they have tossed aside outside the reach of his chain. By this means the light is overturned, … in the shameless dark with unspeakable lust they copulate in random unions, all equally being guilty of incest, some by deed, but everyone by complicity. (Translation retrieved from Riedl 2012, 127)

The denunciation of the Christians as incestuous and orgiastic lumps them together with other secretive groups and mystery cults, whose loyalty the empire questioned. To be accused of ‘putting out the candle’ and violating ethical codes was tantamount to being an enemy of Rome itself. The early church fathers discussed accusations of orgy, incest, and cannibalism widely as early as 180 CE. The theme of extinguishing the lamp was a recurrent motive in these libels (Wagemakers 2010).

In later centuries, Christians adapted similar polemical tactics against their rivals and opponents. There is a large body of literature about use of orgy accusations in Europe (Klaniczay 2002). In general, they are directed towards religious minorities. The literary tropes at work demonstrate resilience across the centuries and also exhibit their effectiveness, which is very likely the reason that the libel survived over the centuries. While one cannot prove with certainty precisely why this accusation proved so enduring, we can hazard that it was effective in achieving polemic aims. Unfortunately, there are no texts in which polemicists explain why they chose to employ this particular libel, but its widespread usage suggests that it succeeded in defaming its targets.

Islamic versions of the slander began to appear at least as early as the twelfth century when Sunni Muslim heresiography wielded it against the Ismailis and a variety of Shi‘i groups (Moosa 1987, 177; Douwes and Lewis 1989, 231, n. 27). Wishnitzer (2021) notes that orgy accusations against ‘heterodox’ groups in Anatolia date back to the fourteenth century (281, n. 51). During the sixteenth century, the Shi’i Safavids invoked the libel against rivals accusing them of ‘extinguishing the candle’ (cherag koshi), probably beginning with the Ismailis or possibly the Nuqtavis, an off-shoot of the Hurufi movement. The Safavids also used candle extinguishers to refer to ‘extremist’ Kızılbaş groups (Floor 2014). Simultaneously, the Ottoman state used the libel of ‘putting out the candle’ as the leading sexual slander against the Safavids and the Anatolian Kızılbaş-Alevi communities. The term Kızılbaş, or ‘red head’, originally referred to the followers and supporters of the Safavid dynasty for their distinctive red head-gear. In the Ottoman domains, it came to be used with regard to Alevi and, later, Bektashi communities in the Ottoman domains, some of whom expressed sympathy for the spiritual and poetic outlook and/or claim to messianic leadership of Shah İsmail.

The rise of the Safavid dynasty from the Safavi Sufi order into a Shi’i empire to the east of the Ottoman Empire that challenged the Ottomans led to a host of anti-Safavid polemics among Ottoman writers. The Kızılbaş revolt of 1511 against the Ottomans placed them directly at odds with the Istanbul-based empire, which responded with harsh suppression of pro-Safavid groups and individuals. A state document from the year 1571 records a court case against a certain Kara Recep who was deemed a ‘Kızılbaş’ and allegedly met with others of his faith in an isolated house in a village in the Kastamonu region, where they danced with music as well as other ‘tools of desire’ and, after the candles were put out, had an orgy. The document reads:

Some heretics in the localities of Amasya, Çorum, Zile,[…], gathered in the night together with their wives and daughters and had carnal knowledge of each other’s wives and daughters. (Kaplan 2014, 46)

This is thought to be among the earliest recorded instances of the accusation in the Ottoman domains. One will notice that certain features of the antique libel are absent. There is no mention of infanticide, homosexuality or cannibalism. However, the chief theme of debauchery in the form of the orgy, possibly coupled with incest, remains front and centre.

Writing in the 1600s, the famous Ottoman traveller Evliya Ҫelebi (1611-c. 1684) mentions the various accusations surrounding the eponym of the Safavi Sufi order and the Safavid dynasty, Shaykh Safi (d. 1353). An interesting aspect of Evliya’s account is that he locates the origin of the ‘candle extinguishing’ practice with Shaykh Safi. Additionally, it represents an early attempt to refute the slander. Rather than exuding Ottoman disdain for the Safavid dynasty, he presents Shaykh Safi as a great saint who carried out what we might call several successful “orgy miracles” in which large groups of people in darkness miraculously have sexual intercourse only with their spouses.

Sheikh Safi achieved the rank of Pole of Poles in the city of Ardabil in the year (—). One day, due to divine inspiration, he went into an ecstasy and summoned the thousandfold congregation to the Muhammadan tevhid [unification ceremony]. He also summoned their womenfolk to attend. So all the women came, with their veils and head-covers, and thousands of them were in a corner occupied with tevhid. After night fell, Sheikh Safi produced a lighted candle and said, ‘Come, my daughters, you too enter the tevhid, just like my sons’.

Just as all the men and women together were performing tevhid and tezkir [remembrance ritual], the saintly Sheikh Safi extinguished the candle and all the men and women mingled together and performed the royal tevhid for seven full hours. Finally Sheikh Safi uttered the words, ‘and blessings upon all the prophets and the apostles’. He passed his hands over his face, then commanded, ‘Let everyone, dark as it is, embrace the ones next to him and go home’.

It turned out that all the men, by virtue of the saintly grace of Sheikh Safi, in that massive confusion had embraced their own wives and daughters and went home. It is truly a miracle that in that dark of night and in that mingling and whirling crowd of people, everyone should have found his very own wife. During Sheikh Safi’s lifetime the candle was extinguished several times, and each time all the men found their own wives and daughters. But after his death, when certain of his deputies extinguished the candle, they missed finding their own womenfolk and the Persians began to be vilified as ‘candle extinguishers’. So this saintly Sheikh Salih, buried in Urmia, prohibited men and women from performing tevhid together and prohibited extinguishing the candle (Çelebi 2011, 136)

After providing an explanation for the origin of the libel, Evliya goes on to argue that – despite popular gossip – ceremonies such as this no longer took place and that accusations against groups in Anatolia were baseless. Here he clearly refers to the Kızılbaş-Alevis, who were the targets of state persecution and popular defamation. He writes that, during his extensive travels in central and eastern Anatolia, he never witnessed anything resembling it. It is important to point out that these libels mentioned thus by Evliya far were directed only towards the Kızılbaş-Alevis and not against Bektashis.¹ However, this was to change in the nineteenth century.

The state prohibition of the Bektashi Sufi order in 1826, along with the military corps of the Janissaries, led to harsh accusations and defamation against them, including charges of sexual immorality that were previously directed towards other groups like the Kızılbaş. The exile and execution of Bektashi leaders was accompanied by the activation of libel. Post-1826, the Bektashi order became a suspect element in Ottoman society and a wide array of insults, accusations, and slanders were heaped upon them by the state and various Islamic authorities. In the wake of the suppression, in 1828, the court historian of Sultan Mahmud II, Esad Efendi, wrote that Bektashis had departed from the path of their patron saint Haji Bektash and, in addition to consuming alcohol, that the Bektashis deemed ‘various immoralities and shameful deeds as religiously permissible’ (Efendi 2005, 168). There is no mention here of ‘putting out the candle’ but the insinuation of illicit sexual behaviour is clear.

A far more explicit set of accusations came some decades later with the polemic treatise by the Islamic scholar Harputlu İshak Hoca (d. 1892) published in 1874. The treatise titled The Revelation of Secrets and the Repulsion of Evil (Kāşifü’l-Esrār ve Dāfiʿü’l-Eşrār) claims that Bektashism has departed from the path of Islam and is deeply penetrated by heretical beliefs. İshak Hoca levels a number of bombastic accusations about the sexual mores of the Bektashi order. Firstly, he alleges that, similar to the practice of issuing indulgences in Christianity, Bektashi babas offer a remission of sins with the important distinction that they provide them to women in exchange for sexual favours. Secondly, he draws a lascivious picture of their lodges comparing them not only with wine taverns but also with brothels, claiming that, in them, members of the order exchange women among themselves. As for the celibate dervishes, the Sunni polemicist alleges that despite renouncing marriage, they continue to indulge in relationships with male youths or in extramarital affairs. And, in what is certainly his most outlandish slander, the author writes that inebriated Bektashis in the city of Thessaloniki walked the streets with their naked wives, offering them to other men to display the magnanimity of their order (Kara 2018).

İshak Hoca’s depiction of ethical debauchery blends heresiography with sensationalist story-telling. He includes, for example, a targeted accusation of homosexuality against the celibate dervishes that may be read as resonating with Livy’s account. However, he also expands the libel to include institutionalised sex exchange for religious services and public displays of lewdness and nudity. His addition of an alleged eye-witness account of public Bektashi debauchery in Thessaloniki, which he claims occurred in 1871/72 (1288 AH), adds a modern twist, suggesting that not only was there a secretive Bektashi dark side but also a public one of which they were proud.

However strong and inventive the accusations became among polemicists like İshak Hoca, the state archives of the nineteenth century have precious little information about ‘putting out the candle’ incidents. Indeed, a survey of digitised documents reveal not a single scandal of this nature recorded, not even as an accusation. During the reign of Abdulhamid II, when state surveillance of Sufi lodges reached new heights, the archives contain various instances of ‘inappropriate’ behaviours, including in Qadiri, Mevlevi and Naqshbandi tekkes, but the orgy libel does not figure among them (BOA, ZB, 305/81).² As for Bektashis, in the summer of 1892, state officials expressed concern about several lodges that single women attended and sought initiation. The male dervishes were ‘mostly married, but some were bachelors’. Reports mention that alcohol was consumed, and the risk of inappropriate behaviour is implied but no instances of sexual transgression are observed (BOA, DH.MKT, 1975/31; BOA, Y.A.HUS, 263/6). The lack of state accusations, observations or interrogations about orgiastic activity again suggest that the ‘putting out the candle’ libel has its basis in polemic rhetoric and narrative rather than in any verifiable cases of libertine sexuality.

Foreign observers often heard tales of Alevi or Bektashi orgies from Sunni Muslims and some listened to them with a healthy degree of scepticism. In the two examples provided here, we find that European anthropologists rejected them as popular slander and urban legend, much in the same vein as Evliya Ҫelebi had a few centuries earlier. In 1881, the Austrian anthropologist Felix von Luschan (1854–1924) encountered Tahtacı Alevis on the southern Mediterranean coast of Anatolia during excavations near Myra. Police and farmers alike told him with great confidence about their unusual behaviour, including ‘putting out the candle’:

All the immense vices are imputed to them, and especially their grand orgies are recited endlessly. Once or several times a year, according to other accounts seven weekly, all the habitants of one village would assemble at night, would drink wine and would make long agitating speeches; then all the lights would be extinguished, and about what happens then Turkish zabtiyes [i. e. gendarmes] or land laborers give their fancy full scope. (Luschan 1891, 32)

Von Luschan lamented that it was difficult to convince even educated people in the area that ‘those fairy tales’ have no basis in reality. To him, the fact that there were no large halls or rooms for such ceremonies makes the accusations especially suspect.

In a very similar vein, the English antiquarian, educator, and archaeologist Frederick William Hasluck (1878–1920), observed the widespread nature of the orgy accusation and dismissed it as denigration towards religious minorities. Writing sometime between 1905–1920, he recorded an identical account as von Luschan but added a good deal of historical and cultural context. Hasluck (1921) recounts that the Kızılbaş are said ‘to indulge in immoral orgies, men and women being assembled in a great room in which the lights are suddenly extinguished’ but given that ‘they are very strict about divorce and monogamy, and the grave charge of promiscuity […],’ he views these accusations as baseless (338). Broadening the perspective, he notes that,

The same charges of incest and promiscuity are brought against the Druses by Benjamin of Tudela in the twelfth century, and the latter in modern times, the Arabs against the fire-worshippers as by the ‘Old’ Turks against the Crypto-Jews of Salonica. […] Kyzylbash laxity in the veiling of women and the fact that the sexes unite in an act of worship, of which no more is known than that it is unorthodox, are sufficient basis for a wholesale slander. (338–339)

The mention of modern uses of the slander against Zoroastrians and the Sabbateans of Thessaloniki illustrates its abundant flexibility and lack of factual basis. It is a slander for all seasons. While European observers like Hasluck and Von Luschan, dismiss ‘putting out the candle’ as fiction, their frequent anthropological encounters with it demonstrate its broad prevalence and enduring polemical success in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Other foreign observers simply repeat the libel, some with Orientalist gusto, relishing its exoticism, for instance this late 19th century account that adds drug use to the mix: ‘The Bektash dervishes are said to indulge in wild orgies in their zikr, or ritual, and especially they employ intoxicants and opium (hasheesh) to bring on the ecstasy. (Peters 1889, 78)’ More sophisticated academic assessments in recent years have also accepted elements of the libel with regard to certain religious communities. Concerning the Syrian Alawis, Krieger (2014) argues that the literary nature of the libel does not exclude possibility that such acts occurred in the 19th century. Şişman (2017) argues that, at least in the case of the Sabbateans, the orgy accusation may have some basis in truth. However, the evidence that he provides is far from convincing. Wischnitzer (2021) has argued recently against Şişman’s position, pointing out the widespread use of this libel against sundry groups and calling the claims ‘baseless’ (59). Baer also evinces a deeply sceptical view of the libel noting that “allegations of ‘wife sharing’ usually were automatically added at the end of a laundry list” of accusations aimed at discrediting its targets (2010, 168).

The modernisation of the orgy libel

During the interwar period, artistic expressions of Sufi debauchery appeared in literature as well as in film. Modernist critiques on Islam and reformist attacks on Sufism placed Sufi lodges and leaders squarely in their crosshairs, attacking shaykhs as ‘charlatans’ and lodges as ‘dens of perdition’. This built on a tradition of state centralisation and reform that had progressively brought Sufi lodges under the surveillance and control of the state since the 1860s. It was a matter of conviction among modernist reformers that the lodges required modernisation and thoroughgoing reform (Silverstein 2009). This conviction found expression via art, particularly literature, as intellectuals made the novel an important medium of social critique and modernist self-fashioning (Göknar 2013).

With regard to the novel, we observe that the ‘putting out the candle’ libel entered the works of important Turkish authors. It proved useful for the function of the Turkish novel as a ‘vehicle of social modernization’ (Göknar 2012). By casting the aspersion of sexual debauchery, the works below identify Sufi lodges as problems in late Ottoman society that must be solved, as targets of modern reform. Within the late Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey, the most famous example of this form of cultural production is the late Ottoman novel Nur Baba (1922) by Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu (1889–1974), a popular and controversial work that had a lasting impact on the perception of Sufism in modern Turkey. Karaosmanoğlu was an important journalist, novelist, and intellectual in the empire-to-republic transition. He worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in several diplomatic appointments and served multiple terms as a member of parliament for the People’s Republican Party. Intellectually, he is remembered for his role in the journal Kadro that developed and promoted a left-leaning version of Kemalism.

Nur Baba was the first novel that criticised Sufi practices and institutions and was made into a motion picture, one of the first cinematic productions of the Turkish Republic. Nur Baba depicts a Bektashi Sufi master in Istanbul driven by lust and greed whose career is distinguished by sexual impropriety of the heterosexual variety (Wilson 2017). The novel deals with ‘putting out the candle’ in a new way. Instead of repeating the slander in its traditional form, it invokes it and alludes to it, but never states it outright. Notably, the first chapter is titled: ‘How is the candle put out in a Bektashi lodge?’ and in this chapter, the author paints a picture of a Bektashi gathering as a party pushed to its limits at which some social conventions are crossed, such as adulterous liaisons and inappropriate flirtations, but no ‘putting out the candle’ in its traditional form. In place of the old libel, the story draws a more modern, possibly more believable portrait of loose morality. Rather than a venue for dramatic, ceremonial orgies, the lodge in Istanbul is a place of seduction for the shaykh and meeting place for lovers, many of whom are married to others. The shaykh himself is the axis of misbehaviour. Adopted as a young boy by a Bektashi shaykh who failed to sire an heir with his wife, the character develops into an aggressive adolescent who harasses and gropes female disciples of the order: ‘There was not one female disciple, young or old, who had not felt, at least once, his hand roving over her thigh (Karaosmanoğlu 2023, 20)’.

His behaviour, combined with the ailing health of his father, leads the disciples to abandon the lodge, leaving it desolate. After the shaykh falls ill, the adopted son begins to have a sexual relationship with his mother and becomes the leader of the lodge. This situation is so bizarre that it attracts people to the lodge who wish to behold the spectacle of the adopted son in a romantic relationship with his mother. In this unusual way, his semi-incestuous relationship brings people to the lodge, leading to its renewal but changing its character. The serious followers of the Bektashi order leave the lodge and a new crowd of fun-seeking elites from the upper crust of Istanbulite society attend the lodge and use it as a venue for partying and illicit relationships. The incestuous nature of this relationship is an allusion to ‘putting out the candle’ as the possibility of incest occurring during orgies in the dark is a common motif of anti-Kızılbaş-Alevi slander (Kara 2018). In this oblique manner, Karaosmanoğlu invokes the slander without repeating it.

The themes of sexual deviancy and anti-family behaviour loom large in the novel, both of which are at the core of the slander. This happens on several levels: there is the predatory shaykh who represents excessive sexuality, but also the celibate male dervish Çinari, who lives in the lodge and symbolises the freakishness of having no sexual life or family at all. The master of excess, Nur Baba takes various female disciples as lovers in extramarital affairs. He does this one-by-one, in serialised passion, not at the same time. They are all wealthy, became obsessed with him, and donate their wealth to the lodge. Eventually, Nur Baba moves on to new, younger lovers. The depiction of Nur Baba is that of a debauched, impassioned man who is dominated by his lust and passion, while at the same time, he marshals them to benefit himself financially. The narrator describes him as resolute hedonist, ‘Since he was eighteen years old, he had been walking contentedly and peacefully toward his end goal, which was pleasure, amid the sound of love, supplication, and passion (Karaosmanoğlu 2023, 19–20)’. Physically, the author portrays him as having eyes that ‘carried an allure of unstrained sensuality (21)’. Meanwhile, it is important to note that Nur Baba has no children. None of his exploits, neither with his wife nor with his lovers, produce any offspring. Nur Baba’s sex is purely for pleasure and creates nothing, neither children nor families.

On the other extreme, the character Çinari, the celibate dervish – mücerred in Bektashi parlance – exemplifies the unnatural state of having no family and no sexuality. Karasosmanoğlu writes, ‘Never in his life had he known the love of a father, or the tenderness of a son, not even the love of a woman’ (49). The story suggests that this celibate life has led the dervish to very unhealthy behaviour and, ultimately, caused him to become less than human, a kind of animalic subhuman that lacks the ability to cope with reality. Lacking love, Çinari has become deeply addicted to alcohol and other drugs that mediate his reality.

Dervish Çinari had traveled to many places, perhaps he went as far as India and China with his master, Atif Baba. He had done a stint of service in many lodges, but not once in his life did he sober up enough to have appreciated his surroundings. The only time he was separated from his wine bottle was when he slept. Due to this powerful habit, Dervish Çinari had, for years, been in a state of sleepwalking from which he never awoke. (Karaosmanoğlu 2023, 49)

The celibate dervish becomes a beast of burden for the lodge, performing all the tasks of hard labour. This hard labour is enjoyable for him because it is the only thing he does well and gives meaning to his life in the absence of a family or companion. His absolute lack of sexuality and family condemns him to a subhuman existence.

Related to the orgy libel, the theme of Bektashi lodges being anti-family institutions resonates throughout and is stated openly by the narrator, ‘I’m gradually coming to better understand the meaning of Bektashi lodges: they are most certainly institutions established in opposition to family life (Karaosmanoğlu 2023, 60)’. This oppositional aspect is displayed through the lives of female disciples. Those who fall in love with Nur Baba leave their homes out of passion for a degenerate shaykh, wreck their families, and neglect their children. In the most striking example, the character Nasib Hanım leaves her sick children at home to have a rendezvous with her lover in the lodge. On the way, she runs into both her husband and her father and tells them a ‘host of lies’ to explain her behaviour (59). The female characters are sexually promiscuous and abandon their husbands. For instance, the protagonist – Nigar Hanım – leaves her house to live in the lodge with Nur Baba. However, when he tires of her and leaves for the winter, she is left in the lodge alone with the celibate dervish, Çinari, who becomes her closest companion. She trades a normal family for an asexual life with an alcoholic dervish – an example the novel uses to tell a morality tale about the dangers of women attending Sufi lodges. Like the ‘putting out the candle’ libel, the lodge destabilises culturally dominant forms of sexuality and erodes the traditional family.

In several ways, the story drives home the point that Bektashi lodges are havens of illicit sexuality, of multiple types, in which women who leave their traditional roles are likely to be abused and seduced, constituting an environment ripe for predation and ethical collapse as well the collapse of the family. This is a modern take on old themes that are present in the putting out the candle libel. It contains the main elements – adultery, fornication, promiscuity, incest, illegitimacy, and unnatural sexuality – that constitute the core offences in the ancient version of the libel. The parts that disappear are the accusation of infanticide and possibiliity of homosexual liasons. In Ottoman-Turkish versions of the libel, ritual murder, cannibalism, and homosexuality do not appear. The reasons for this are unclear. The omission of homoeroticism may stem from a cultural proclivity to avoid mention or criticism of homosexual encounters given that they had no effect on lineage and inheritance and, moreover, were widely practiced among certain social classes.

The novel repackages the element of the libel in a new form in modern Istanbul, all the while making references to Greco-Roman names and groups that are associated with orgiastic behaviour. Karaosmanoğu’s narrator states the case openly, ‘it would seem that a Bektashi ceremony resembled the debauched orgies of Nero, Petronius or Trimalchio’ (Karaosmanoğlu 2023, 34). One character is said to appear ‘like a satyr from Greek mythology chasing after newly matured virgins’ (67). Karaosmanoğlu explains in the introduction that the lead character Nigar is partially inspired by the female priestesses of the Bacchanalia cult, which was condemned for orgiastic and anti-moral behaviour by the Roman Senate (Karaosmanoğlu 2018, 9). In other words, orgy is ubiquitous in the novel, even if the putting out the candle libel is not clearly spelled out.

The novel became a classic of Turkish literature and the image of the sexually excessive Bektashi Sufi shaykh became a fixture in popular and literary culture in Turkey (Gürsoy 2023). Other authors followed this theme in Karaosmanoğlu’s wake, presenting Sufi shaykhs, especially Bektashis in similar fashion, for instance, Niyazi Ahmet Banoğlu’s 1945 novel Bektaşi Kız (Bektashi Girl) as well as Refik Halit Karay’s infamous Kadınlar Tekkesi (The Lodge of Women) (1956) (also, Güntekin 1928; Hisar 1952). Of particular interest here is the short story ‘A Young Girl among the Bektashis’ (Bir Genç Kız Bektaşiler Arasında), published in 1927, which contains a particularly sensual and direct presentation of ‘putting out the candle’. Its author, Peyami Safa, (1899–1961) was a journalist and novelist who is generally remembered for his conservative nationalist views. Written under the pen name of Server Bedi, his fiction frequently explores the theme of East vs. West and tensions created by modernisation. He was close to the People’s Republican Party until the founding of the Democrat Party in the 1940s.

In some respects, his story ‘A Young Girl among the Bektashis’ is a copycat of Nur Baba. The villain of Safa’s story is a Bektashi shaykh who stalks young, elite women and lures them to his tekke. However, in other ways, it is less refined and more explicit than Yakup Kadri’s story, which has an oblique approach to sexuality and offers erudite references to the orgies of antiquity. Firstly, Safa’s story makes the young female narrator, Cemile, an object of desire for the reader. In doing so, he combines the orgy libel with a recently formed genre of popular printed erotic literature that had blossomed between 1908 and 1920 with the liberalisation of printing and cultural-political orientation towards more personal and sexual freedom during the period. Themes of virginity, defloration, fornication and sexual fantasy proliferated in dozens of novels, a number of which were penned by respectable authors who hid their identities behind pen names. The publication of a Turkish rendering of the Kama Sutra in 1913 may be considered a milestone in Turkish erotica (Karahan 2012; Schick 2004).

Tendencies of this mass erotic literature can be observed clearly in ‘A Young Girl Among the Bektashis’. Using provocative language, Safa’s heroine Cemile describes her own physical beauty as well as her inner desires:

I can’t say that I was a beautiful girl because ‘beautiful’ would be an understatement for me […] my lips were always moist and my eyes were always shining.[…] Inside I had excessive desires; with all men and with manliness I felt an infinite feebleness; when I imagined myself alone with a man, my body began to sweat all over, I trembled as if I would faint. (Safa 1927, 14)

In what can only be described as a vulgar style that appealed to the lower instincts of male readers, Safa creates an erotic object for the reader, who is both attractive, excitable, and passive in the presence of men. This objectification continues later in the story when she attends a lodge ceremony, is initiated, and then stripped naked in front of the entire assembly, which is left in awe by her beauty. As music plays, she begins to serve the attendees wine in her natural state. She recounts the feeling, ‘as the men’s eyes scanned my naked body lightning bolts struck. […] the electric sparks from the men’s eyes were going through my naked flesh into my body, filling it, and making me intoxicated as well’ (Safa 1927, 28).

As for the orgy libel, Safa’s story is also more explicit than Nur Baba. Having been stalked by a Bektashi shaykh in her town, Cemile asks a friend what Bektashism is. The friend responds that Bektashism is a secret that consists of gathering secretly in a lodge, drinking alcohol, singing hymns (nefes), and ‘then … having pleasure’ (Safa 1927, 17). This explanation increases her interest to speak with the shaykh, and, even though it would probably end in disaster, she feels it is an ‘enticing disaster’ (17). She pursues this and takes initiation, after which she observes the beginning of an orgy: ‘I saw the women and the men get close to one another and embrace […] there were at least fifty or sixty people. Slowly the candles began to go as they exhausted their wax’ (17). The shaykh then takes her into another room alone with him while she is naked, and he in his undergarments, and asks her to sit on his lap. Loud knocking at the door allows interrupts the seduction and Cemile is able to narrowly escape with her integrity intact.

This low-brow version of the ‘putting out the candle’ libel illustrates how modern literature expanded and vulgarised the myth to create a scintillating, erotic tale that would appeal to a certain segment of the reading public. Through the addition of first-person narrative and highly suggestive, sensual language, Safa’s story represents an intensification, popularisation, and eroticisation of the libel. It is essential to note that, despite the progressive reforms and discourse of the early republic, Karaosmanoğlu and Safa, who were both close to the national project, chose to present women characters as sexual objects and weak characters with no ability to think rationally or protect themselves. The orgy libel is here invoked in such a way that it preserves a patriarchal and regressive view of women in society while entertaining a primarily male audience.

While most modern Turkish literature chose the Bektashi Sufi order as its subject, sexual slander was not limited to them. Its application was broader as the mood of some intellectual and political elites turned increasingly negative against the Sufi orders and lodges. In the same period and place, the ‘putting out the candle’ libel was levelled at the Sabbatean or ‘dönme’ communities in Turkey. In October 1925, a member of the Kapancı Dönme was quoted in Resimli Dünya as saying, ‘I believe that the ceremony called “extinguishing of the candles” is still practiced’ by various groups of Sabbateans in Istanbul (Baer 2010, 168). With regard to other Sufi orders, a front-page story in the newspaper İleri in 1924 accused the Mevlevi Sufi order of committing ‘unnatural’ and ‘unethical’ acts in its lodges. The piece describes some leaders of the order as taking the ‘path of pleasure and desire’ and demonstrating an open ‘attraction to young handsome men’ (İleri, 1924, 1–2). An image of young boys dancing around a dervish playing the reed flute makes it clear that the accusation is one of pederasty and abuse of minors.

It is worth noting that modern literature does not accuse Bektashis of homosexuality or of engaging in homoerotic adult-youth relationships. The modern literary Bektashi is a resolutely heterosexual playboy, a master of manipulating women, an orchestrator of orgiastic activities in the spirit of the ancient libel, adjusted for modern Istanbul and a literate public. In the cases examined here, the ‘putting out the candle’ libel transforms from a malevolent religious libel to a kind of voyeuristic, sensationalist pulp fiction. Some of the same fears are present as in the antique versions, for instance, the loss of feminine virtue and the destruction of the family but gone are the charges of infanticide and cannibalism that animated older iterations of the libel. In different ways, both Nur Baba and Peyami Safa’s short story turn the libel into something akin to erotic literature for a male audience: The Bektashi Sufi shaykh is not a heretic or threat to the state but rather a playboy, often a provincial and uneducated one, who enjoys the wealthiest, most beautiful women from Istanbul. By virtue of his position of spiritual authority, the shaykh is able to succeed in conquests far beyond his station, threatening the integrity of elite families. This inversion of social hierarchy is particularly disturbing for the authors of the literary works here discussed, just as the idea of the orgy in the dark traditionally threatened chaos in sexual relationships, lineage, and social order.

We can also observe through literature that, with time, the term kızılbaşlık (Kızılbaş-ism) obtained the meaning of ‘incest’ in modern Turkish language. This meaning traces back to the idea that alleged orgies among Alevi-Bektashi communities result in incestuous liasons with offspring of unclear lineage. In 1947, the Turkish Ministry of Education published a translation of Emile Zola’s novel La Curée with ‘incest’ rendered as kızılbaşlık (Zola 1947). The well-known writer and intellectual Murat Belge’s 1982 translation of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying did exactly the same (Faulkner 1982). The 2006 ‘Langenscheidt New Standard Dictionary: Turkish-English/English-Turkish’ defined the English term incest as ‘to fornicate with a relative, i.e. Kızılbashism’ (akraba ile zina, kızılbaşlık). These are but a few of the numerous instances of this usage that associates Alevi-Bektashis with ritual incest in modern literature and language. They illustrate just how deeply the orgy libel has penetrated popular perceptions, literature, and the very language itself.

Conclusion

The novelised ‘putting out the candle’ uses an old script in a new context. On the one hand, it is a modernist critique of a particular Sufi order, but on the other hand, it should be read as broader social commentary on sexuality and gender roles, often reflecting the anxieties over changing roles of women in society. Neither of these two works from the 1920s express concern about male-male relationships and both attempt to bolster the idea of the traditional family. For many modernist authors, Sufi tekkes represented challenges to modern family structure, including the nuclear family. Media, literature, and the state condemned polygynous relationships and modes of excessive sexual restraint – namely celibacy – as well as overly sensual religious practices that harkened back to traditions of pederasty that had once been widely tolerated.

Given its remarkable longevity and wide application, the ‘putting out the candle’ libel can be considered part of the shared heritage of region, invoked by Romans, Ottomans, and Safavids as well as modern Turks, Syrians, and Greeks against a variety of religious groups. In slightly different versions, it figures among the most enduring and ‘successful’ religious libels in the recorded history of the region. In this respect, it shares much in common with the infamous ‘blood libel’ against Jews, which had greater impact in Western Europe, and was greatly bolstered by the printing press. In the Turkish Republic, the adaptation of the orgy accusation by modern authors have kept it alive within both the cultural and political realms and it certainly benefitted from the printing boom between 1908–1922. As a result, contemporary Alevis and Bektashis continue to suffer the effects of the libel which has been invoked in recent times by writers and politicians of various persuasions (Karolewski 2008; Elias 2021).

Considering all of the above, the orgy libel appears – in most cases – to have had the function of demonising minority groups for the purpose of maintaining power over them. In the context of early republican literature, the libel is deployed as a means of commenting on sexual virtue and general morality and identifying social ills. Additionally, it transforms an ancient libel into entertainment for a public that is receptive to scintillating tales of debauchery and often willing to believe the worst about their compatriots of a different religious persuasion. The sensationalism of the orgy libel, now expressed through playboy shaykhs, found a welcome reception in the world of early republican culture. Novels and short-stories elevated low-brow stereotypes into the realm of high culture and reinforced the message that the abolition of the Sufi lodges had been a necessary and successful measure.

Finally, modern versions of the libel reveal the limits and superficiality of the progressive project of creating a modern emancipated woman in the early years of the Turkish Republic. Despite state reforms and public discourse encouraging the education and active participation of women in society, the mentality of elite male authors did not easily adapt (Karahan 2012). And, more broadly, the patriarchal mindset struggled to cope with the modern republican woman promoted by the official institutions of state. In the cases examined here, both Karaosmanoğlu and Safa used the orgy libel to portray women in a way that is completely at odds with women’s empowerment. The elite heroines – both of whom are daughters of state officials – are represented as sexual objects who behave in irrational ways, and improbably fall in love with coarse Bektashi shaykhs well beneath their social station. Despite being well-educated, they are excessively emotional, make terrible decisions, and choose the allure of orgiastic Sufism over their privileged households. In sum, these republican authors marshal the orgy libel as a means of expressing anxieties about the new freedoms and visibility of women in society. Their demeaning portrayal of women can be read as an expression of scepticism about modern womanhood and understood as a critique of or frustration with the progressive agenda for women. In this way, the orgy libel found new life as an expression of patriarchal anxiety and entertainment in the interwar period.

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, Feyza Burak-Adli, Gözde Kılıç, Francesco Piraino, Matthias Riedl, and Shobhana Xavier for their comments and suggestions that helped in the writing and amelioration of this article. The authors and editors of this special issue would like to thank the Giorgio Cini Foundation and Ca’Foscari University of Venice for funding the conference “Sufism and Gender: Female Religious Authorities in Contemporary Societies” held in December 2021 in Venice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the ACRO - Central European University.

Notes

1. The Kızılbaş or ‘red heads’ were associated with the followers and devotees of the Safavid Shah İsmail, the eastern rival to the Ottoman Empire. They shared with the Bektashis certain religious tendencies, including pronounced Alidism, devotion to Haji Bektash as well as devotional practices that diverged from those prescribed by the urban ulama.

2. Wishnitzer writes that during the rule of Abdulhamid II, reports of the libel in state documents appear from time to time (Wishnitzer 2021, 61). However, the source – Baki Öz, (1995) Alevilik İlgili Osmanlı Belgeleri does not contain precise citation of the archival document. Of course, it may be authentic, but, unfortunately, our search could not locate the original in the archives. The content of the report alludes in general terms to the putting out the candle libel but does not state it explicitly and does not refer to a specific contemporary instance.